Interview with Brodie Andersen from Telltale Games

Hi Brodie! Can you please introduce yourself to our readers and tell them what is your position in Telltale Games?

Hi! My Name is Brodie Andersen. I‘m the executive producer for The Walking Dead: The Final Season from Telltale Games.

What is your favourite videogame of recent times?

Oh, it‘s hard to pick favourites… I really enjoyed The Witness which I played recently.

As an executive producer, what exactly are your tasks at Telltale Games?

I‘m in charge of running the project Clemetine. Being an executive producer my task is to make sure that we make a qualitative product in a certain time and budget. I‘m working with different teams and make sure that everything they develop sticks to our actual plans. Then we try to fulfill these plans in order to reach a finished product.

Have you worked on the predecessors of The Walking Dead: The Final Season as well?

I entered the The Walking Dead franchise at Season 3. I worked on episodes 3, 4 and 5. Furthermore at Telltale I worked on Batman Season 1 and Game of Thrones episodes 4, 5 and 6.

With the The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series coming to an end, do you feel a little sad that such a big project is nearly finished?

Yeah, through all of this seasons there are lots of emotions we‘ve been through, so it will definitly be bittersweet to say goodbye to Clementine as a playable character. You know it‘s something we don‘t take lightly since she has been around for so many years – being introduced in 2012. So that‘s a thing we definitly want to end right. There‘s a lot of blood, sweat and tears gotten into this but we are really proud of what we have been able to do!

Would you say that Clementine is your favourite character or is it someone else in The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series?

You know, episode 1 of the Final Season came out last week and I‘m on Team Violet and Team Louis but I would still say that Clementine is my favourite.

Did you set yourself new goals for the new season, for example altering the narrative?

Before starting the new season we really took a step back and though about what we wanted to approve. So we brought in a number of things: We‘ve updated our rendering engine quite a bit. We have fully dynamic lightning now. We‘ve added in an over-the-shoulder-camera and scripted combat. Previously we just used Quick-Time-Events to interact with sequences. So we wanted something that was going to supplement the narrative. We felt that the camera and the combat would be really true to the roots of survival horror.

We also gave the narrative the tension that you are never safe. Though we didn‘t want it to be too difficult either. We want it to be accessible – something you pick up and play. At the same time we wanted to enhance the experience of the player to be deeply immersed in the world.

We also enhanced our facial animation and the lip synch. We are lip synching in mutliple languages now: German, French, Brazilian, Portugese and Spanish. So it‘s not simply dubbed but ajusted to the certain language.

The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series finally arrived on the Nintendo Switch. Why do you think the Gameplay suits the console?

We are huge fans of the Nintendo Switch – we all have one. So we think that our games really suit the concept of the Nintendo Switch: You can play it on the go and put your headphones on, quickly pause it and continue playing on the TV while the console is docked. So yes, we absolutely think that it suits the Nintendo Switch.

You announced that the Wolf Among Us 2 will be delayed to 2019. Is there a possibility that it might be released for the Nintendo Switch?

You know, I don‘t really have something to comment about that. But we are big supporters of the Nintendo Switch and we are going to continue developing on that platform.

Last but not least: Which character from all the Telltale Games would make a good fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate?

I think Ruben from Minecraft would be a great one. I‘d bet my money on Mirah from Game of Thrones. Certainly Loader Bot from Borderlands… There is a lot of good choices actually. And Rosy the dog from The Walking Dead: The Final Season.